1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to replacement of configurable devices in a system.
2. Background Information
Some electronic systems include one or more replaceable components. Such components may be configurable and, as such, may have memory in which configuration information may be stored. The operation of such a component may be altered by changing the components' configuration information. A configurable component in a system generally may interact with at least one other system component (which itself may or may not be configurable). The configurable component's configuration information may dictate how the component interacts with such other components.
If a configurable component is removed and replaced by another configurable component, one or more problems may arise. For instance, the new component may be configured differently than the component which it replaced which may cause the new component to function differently than the previous component. The difference in functionality may be unintended and may cause improper system behavior. If the configurable component is a switch that interacts with various server computers (“servers”) in a network environment, a security breach may occur as confidential information unintentionally may be provided to an incorrect server because a replacement switch may be configured incorrectly.